Clues
' |image= |series= |production=40274-188 |producer(s)= |story=Bruce D. Arthurs |script=Bruce D. Arthurs and Joe Menosky |director=Les Landau |imdbref=tt0708688 |guests=Colm Meaney as Miles O'Brien, Rhonda Aldrich as Madeline, Pamela Winslow as Ensign McKnight, Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan, Patti Yasutake as Alyssa Ogawa, Thomas Knickerbocker as Gunman |previous_production=Devil's Due |next_production=First Contact |episode=TNG D14 |airdate=11 February 1991 |previous_release=Devil's Due |next_release=First Contact |story_date(s)=Stardate 44502.7 |previous_story=Devil's Due |next_story=First Contact }} =Summary= The Enterprise investigates a T Tauri class star system with a single Class M planet that was picked up on a long-range sensor scan near the Ngame Nebula. As they approach the planet, the ship encounters a wormhole and everyone except Lt. Commander Data briefly loses consciousness. When the crew regains consciousness, the ship's sensors suggest it has been nearly a day since the wormhole encounter, but Data states they were only out for moments and the ship's instruments were affected by the wormhole. Captain Picard opts to send a probe into the system to avoid further harm to the ship per Data's suggestion. The probe reports only the presence of a frozen gas giant instead of the Class M planet from before; again, Data attributes this to the effects of the wormhole. As the ship moves away from the system, the crew begin to find evidence that does not support Data's claims that they were only unconscious for a few moments; Chief Medical Officer Dr. Crusher has found moss samples have grown fully in that time, and that she has found that Worf, complaining of a sore wrist, actually had his wrist broken and reset by a medical professional. Picard begins to suspect Data's claims, and believes the rest of the crew is suffering from missing time syndrome. Picard confronts Data on the issue, but Data cannot provide a rational answer. Further studies of the crew by Dr. Crusher show that Data's explanations are impossible; they have lost a day from the wormhole encounter, and there is evidence that Data tampered the probe's readings to mask the Class M planet. Picard recognizes that Data's actions may be for the protection of the Enterprise, but orders the ship to return to the system. When they near the Class M planet, Ship's Counselor Troi is taken over by a mysterious energy pulse from the system, and starts to speak to the crew with a different voice. The entity that has taken over Troi informs Picard that his plan has failed, and that their people will prepare to destroy the Enterprise. Picard learns from Data and the entity that they are in the space of the Paxans, a highly advanced but very xenophobic race who have kept themselves hidden by firing a stun beam at any ship that nears their system and then moving it away; crews of such ships normally associate it with the effects of a wormhole. However, in the case of the Enterprise, the stun beam did not affect Data; Data had revived the crew as the Paxans were attempting to move the ship, and forcing a physical encounter that led to Worf's wrist being broken. Picard was able to offer the Paxans a deal as to attempt to conceal their previous meeting, using memory-wiping technology from the Paxans to forget their encounters with them, and ordered Data to behave as he did to protect the ship. Picard is able to implore to the Paxan in control of Troi that the previous plan failed because they left too many clues on the Enterprise that piqued human curiosity to solve the mystery and that if the Enterprise vanishes, it will cause others to come investigate. The crew of the Enterprise, with the help of the Paxans, work together to completely eradicate any possible clues; once completed, the crew is stunned again, and the ship moves away from Paxan space. When the crew revives this time, they accept Data's explanations without question and continue on their mission. =Errors and Explanations= Plot Oversights # Troi wearing a nightie when the Paxan inhabits her body, but showing up at Data's quarters a short while later in uniform. The Paxan's repect for privacy may have prompted them to allow Troi to get changed before leaving her quarters. # When the crew wake up during Data's recollectons, the android tells Picard an energy field is attempting to penetrate the shields, prompting Picard to call for evasive maneuvers, instead of asking about the wormhole. He may have temporaily forgotten about the wormhole, due to the need to protect the ship from an unknown energy field which is attempting to penetrate the shields. Equipment Oddities # Worf having to page Security to overide the lock on the door for Troi's quarters. Troi may have ordered the computer to maintain the lock. Nit Central # Brian Lombard on Monday, October 16, 2000 - 9:28 am: O'Brien has an ensign working for him in this episode. More evidence that he was a Lieutenant in this series. Why did they change it for DS9? Possibly a tempory field commission? # Endora on Thursday, February 15, 2001 - 2:03 pm: The clues to a missing day was the crux of the mystery, yet there was a simple way to prove it rather than with all of the detective work. All they had to do was access a Federation Time Beacon and they would have seen that the ships chronometer was a day off. They did this in Cause and Effect. ltdodd on Saturday, August 04, 2001 - 12:12 am: re:chronometer would have been a day off. Actually what happened was the "wormhole" was explained as having not only caused the Enterprise to travel .50 parsec from their original position but also traveled in *time* in the span of thirty seconds a day into the future. # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Wednesday, July 25, 2001 - 4:41 am: In this episode Data makes a statement that it is apparently normal for humanoids to pass out when they encounter Wormholes, but Geordi didn't pass out when he and Data went through the Barzan Wormhole in The Price, nobody passed out in the constructed Wormhole on Deep Space Nine, and I believe in Star Trek: The Motion Picture they encountered a Wormhole and the only odd thing was that their speech sounded funny. Is it only Wormholes formed next to T-Tauri type stars that cause this blackout? Maybe the wormhole focused the privacy effect triggered by the Paxans. # For a race willing to kill a shipload of people to protect their privacy, the Paxans gave in a little too easy when Picard suggested that they treat the first erasure as a `dry run' and that they try it all again. Either they are a rather gullible people or they really don't like to kill.Perhaps they realise that killing the crew of the Federation flagship would bring more visitors. # dotter31 on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 2:50 pm: Maybe the Aldeans should loan the schematics of their planetary cloaking device to the Paxans. Why didn't Picard offer this as an option? Vashti on Thursday, February 23, 2006 - 8:05 am: Maybe because the Aldeans had to switch off their cloaking device because it was destroying them - not exactly a sustainable technology. Torque, Son of Keplar on Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 10:01 pm: It was destroying the Aldeans but it probably would have a different effect on energy beings capable of taking over someone's body, aka the Paxans. =Sources= Category:Episodes Category:The Next Generation